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Tim O’Brien did not set out to write a conclusive assessment of Donald Trump’s wealth. But it was those three pages in a 275-page book that occasioned what is, even in the annals of frivolous Trump lawsuits, a special display of petty, thin-skinned litigiousness. In October 2005, O’Brien, then a business reporter for the New York Times, published a book about Donald Trump, TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald. The book was not a hatchet job. Not only did O’Brien interview friends and employees and business associates and political rivals and much of the rest of the Who’s Who of the World of Donald, he also chatted with the man himself — repeatedly.....Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431575/donald-trump-tim-obrien-courtroom-story
Says O’Brien: “My lawyers stripped the bark off of him.” And the judges stripped what was left. A footnote in the superior court’s ruling relates: “Trump contends that O’Brien acknowledged that his name was a valuable asset, calling it ‘bigger than Coke and Pepsi.’ That statement is incorrect. The claim was reported in a BusinessWeek article as emanating from Trump himself.”And, of course, Trump himself was deposed, leading to the following exchange, a crystallization of the Trump ethos: Q: Now, Mr. Trump, have you always been completely truthful in your public statements about your net worth of properties? A: I try. Q: Have you ever not been truthful? A: My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings, but I try. Q: Let me just understand that a little bit. Let’s talk about net worth for a second. You said that the net worth goes up and down based upon your own feelings? A: Yes, even my own feelings, as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day. Then you have a September 11th, and you don’t feel so good about yourself and you don’t feel so good about the world and you don’t feel so good about New York City. Then you have a year later, and the city is as hot as a pistol. Even months after that it was a different feeling. So yeah, even my own feelings affect my value to myself. Q: When you publicly state what you’re worth, what do you base that number on? A: I would say it’s my general attitude at the time that the question may be asked. And as I say, it varies.
